


Bomb Rush Blush

by thoopsy



Category: Splatoon
Genre: First Meetings, I WANNA SEE DEDF1SH, I usually give her she/they but callie hasn't asked yet and she's not gonna assume, IN A WAY I GUESS? you never see dedf1sh and it makes me sad, Octo Expansion DLC Spoilers, Other, they/them pronouns for dedf1sh (splatoon), twirls my tentacles. i love ur music haha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:07:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27095554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoopsy/pseuds/thoopsy
Summary: Callie's here to help with the Rescue at the Subway!Problem is, she's gotten a bit lost.
Relationships: Callie/Dedf1sh (Splatoon)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	Bomb Rush Blush

**Author's Note:**

> This is kinda old! I forgot I'd finished it!! Oops!!!

Whatever this place was, Callie was unnerved. A secret, underground facility that kidnaps children and Older-than-the-Sun Grampses is, by definition, very bad in many ways, inherently.

It didn’t help it was so DARK. 

When Marie’d explained the frantic call she’d gotten from Marina, about some sort of rescue mission at the subway, Callie thought, “Well, a subway, it’s probably got fluorescent lights everywhere!” 

So she’d thrown together a bag, and after weeks of relentlessly searching the continent for wherever the subway was.. She hadn’t thought much about the flashlight she’d shoved in her tool kit.

So here they were, Marie, 4, and herself, in the walls of Facility Un-Freshest (working insult, she’d get something better eventually) mapping out the maintenance tunnels to figure out the fastest way to get 5 friends out safe.

She shouldn’t have suggested they split up.

The mystery-solvers in mystery-solvers-cartoons  _ always _ split up to find clues! Callie never considered  _ she’d _ be the one who was scared in the dark with a flashlight that cost so little and was worth even less.

It was barely bright enough to get by on, when it WAS on, and with the constant flickering on and off, and having to hit it against her slosher to get it back on sometimes, her eyes couldn’t adjust to this tunnel. It was very metal, and probably not something squid-form-her could stand on. She knew that, she could hear the clank of her own footsteps, and could feel the holes under her feet that would make heels impossible but. Tell her that the walls were covered in baby pictures of Octavio and she’d believe you.

Callie was so busy being angry at her flashlight and at having it, shaking it and hitting it against her slosher, that she didn’t realize the floor was out of floor until she was falling like jumping off of Moray Towers, but worse because SHE USUALLY HAD A LITTLE WARNING AND COULD PREPA-

“Oof.”

The impact made her drop her dumb terrible flashlight and her trusty,  _ not _ awful-bad slosher. Callie scrambled to grab the slosher, it was very important to protecting herself from anyone who found her sneaking around, but the maybe-sentient and definitely-malicious flashlight wasn’t anywhere near where she landed anymore. 

Of course, it wasn’t on either.

As she started thinking about the ramifications of falling off the path and not having a light, in a facility where they were doing awful experiments maybe, or maybe killing folks, or. And she was on a surface that could be really tiny, above an even BIGGER fall, or she could be over _ water _ with no way to respawn, or, or.

She was maybe hyperventilating, and maybe afraid of the dark, and maybe afraid that someone would find her here and hypnotize her again and it would take months for Marie to find her again or maybe she’d be killed instead and Marie wouldn’t even know what  _ happened- _

Getting more afraid wasn’t gonna help, though, so she did some breathing just like she always told Marie to do when the fans got to be too much. 

In through your nose, 1, 2. 

Out through your mouth, 1, 2.

It wasn’t silent in here.

There was some gentle beeping noises, coming from... Somewhere behind her, and a little to the right. A background whirr of air through vents. Clicking and tapping and an occasional swoosh, like a record. 

... There were lights in here, too. She hadn’t noticed at first because of how dim they were. 

Callie turned her head, to look for the sound behind her, and there was. Red. 

The dimness reminded her of a bedroom, lit by only a buncha backlit computer buttons. With how her eyes were starting to adjust to nothing, it was definitely enough.

Ominous. Callie naturally had pink ink, but this red was. Unnerving. Her breath hitched before she went back to her in-and-out, trying to keep herself calm.

But with the red light, she could kind of see, and- Well she was on a flat floor, not just a cube of fear over an abyss, so that was nice. It was concrete, and her flashlight was... Just behind where she was sitting.

Callie cautiously got to her feet, and screwed the flashlight a little tighter, finally getting it to hold a beam for a moment, to look at whatever was red.

Standing there, across from her, was a cephalopod like her, but their arms were an alarming, bright green. It was almost instantaneous that their neck snapped up in an awful, jarring-looking motion, and Callie saw The Hypnoshades.

Her flashlight, as if it could sense her fear, finally gave one last flicker of defeat and went out. She didn’t need it though, because suddenly, there was a better light source.

Callie started laying ink, instinctively maybe, and it was too bright, like those ‘ooh-vee’ lights they had at raves, or whatever they were called. Weird parts of her costume glowed in ways that she didn’t like. To match, there was suddenly a pounding beat, unlike anything she’d ever heard. 

Then there was a dark shape coming flying at her.

In the ink, dodge. 

But this was an Octarian, right? She knew some Octarian. One of her guards, she never learned their name but they were an octocommander, taught her.

“ _ HEY! I think there’s been a MISUNDERSTANDING! _ ” She shouted at whoever-that-was, but they didn’t flinch, they just pressed a button and sent another, what even WAS that, her way.

Throw down a curling bomb, swim in the ink.

When she resurfaced, they’d another looping sample to the mix, and it sounded like.. Her voice?!

This Octoling was mixing fast, and. It wasn’t half bad.

As she jumped out of the way of, okay that was a giant metal tentacle, she kinda got an idea. Sometimes music was what you needed to break out of the hypnoshades hold! She couldn’t sing Calamari Inkantation, it would be empty without two voices singing it, but she sure could try something else!

She started humming the base beat of Bomb Rush Blush, it was  _ designed _ for battle! Callie’d written it about battle! 

It wasn’t that hard to settle into a rhythm, humming and dodging, dodging and humming. They were making something  _ new. _ She’d hit a metacle (metal tentacle) with some ink to get it visible, dive in, and when she resurfaced again they’d always add something new. Where were they getting all these  _ cool samples? _

She started singing in earnest, the lyrics. Originally, she’d written this song when she’d met a  _ very _ pretty Octoling on a battlefield! She’d never told anyone, it was her secret. 

Her lyrics didn’t translate perfectly, but maybe she should sing in Octarian, just so they’d understand. “ _ You and me, we’re on different sides, I think we could get along, if we just tried!” _

Callie swam through another curling bomb trail, she didn’t know how many mentacles (still metal tentacles, but this time it sounded like they were brain based in some way?) there were in here, but it felt like a lot. “ _ Come on now, so rude to hit with a brush!” _

A ba-da-ba-ba-da-da played, exactly like it was supposed to. Man, they’d really been listening, huh! They had a musical ear.  _ “You and me, we’re on different sides, I think I could love you love you, if we just tried! When you ink me, and smile, it doesn’t sting so much!” _

Okay, she was admittedly having a blast. They added a little toot sound from a bike horn and it was so silly, all she could do was slosh and laugh. Two talented musicians, just throwing stuff out there! 

Talented musicians, but apparently not as talented at foot work. Her horrible flashlight got one last blow on both her  _ and _ her pride. It snuck under her foot, and tripped her backwards onto the ground. 

She went to slip into the ink, as she got their air in her lungs back, but there was nothing under her.  _ She hadn’t inked here.  _ She also wasn’t holding her bucket again, and Callie was starting to seriously consider just gluing her stuff to her hands.

The tentacles loomed over her, lots of them, ready to strike. Instead of simply squishing her flat they slid under her. They were picking her up? Wrapping around her, but not so tight that they were threatening to splat her. 

Still, color her terrified. Whatever color terrified was.

The tentametals (still working on it) brought her over to the DJ, and she realized that they were humming along with the song. Their voice was super strange, extra gurgly, but also really… Nice. 

Here she was, forcefully suspended over their turntables. Finally she got a pretty good view of them. Both their tentacles and hands were tipped with that same ominous red color, and almost all of them was lit up brightly by the ooh-vee. 

Her eyes followed the movement of their hands as they lifted to their face. Off came the shades, and they. Smiled. It was small, just a little upturn of their lips. She could’ve missed it.

“ _ You and me, we’re on different sides.” _ They sang, and Callie couldn’t help it, she broke into a grin.

“ _ It worked! Rad! I love not dying. Could you let me down?” _

They didn’t talk while she went and gathered her Things (despite how treacherous her flashlight was, it was somehow better than nothing). They didn’t say anything when she came back over. They just pressed buttons on their DJ station. The song didn’t seem to be changing any, it was just moving their tentametalcles up and down, in a repeating pattern. Up to… Oh, that’s where she fell from!

_ “We can use that to escape! Oh, you’re fantastic!”  _ Callie held out a hand, “ _ Let’s get out of here. I’m actually here on a rescue mission, you know!” _

Hand in colder-than-average hand, seeing by the light of the DJ’s headphones, they made their way deeper into the facility. With a new friend by her side, and a song to hum together, she didn’t feel so alone.


End file.
